Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320GB 16MB 2,5" 7200RPM SATAII HDD

Hi there,

Just upgraded my Dell XPS M1330 notebook with the Seagate Momentus 7200.3 320GB 16MB 2,5" 7200RPM SATAII harddrive, and thought I'd post my take on the unit.

My computer came with a WD Caviar 120GB 8MB SATA harddrive, spinning at 5400RPM, which is a very quiet harddrive.

Now, the new Seagate drive does make a little bit more noise, as in, I can hear it working. It isn't by any means noisy, nor is there any irritable clicking noises, as some users have said this harddrive makes. It did make clikcing noises the first day of use, dnno why, but now that I've used it for a few days, the clicking noises are gone.

The drive is quiet in its operation. (I thought it would be more noisy, so I can recommend it. I'm running the drive in "performance" mode, set in the system BIOS, and haven't tried it in "Quiet" mode yet, which I suppose would be even more quieter. The drive is FAST! My "older" drive, the WD 120GB 5400rpm SATA drive is about half the speed of the new Seagate unit.

Here's the result of HD Tune (I've only run it once, no system optimization, all stock...) :



This drive is recommended with a big R.

Great capacity, extreme speed, 5 yr warranty, CHEAP, quiet operation, dunno about power consumption, but I hear it's supposed to be low... Anyway, a recommended product...

EDIT: Here's the Windows Score, a 5.9: (harddrive is the last in the list)

 

Good choice, I got the exact same hdd yesterday!

Here's my hdtune, slightly slower average performance, slightly faster access times and burst speed:

 

OK, so how do you copy the original factory partition to the new drive if all you have is an additional external HD , but no desktop?? Can it be done?

 

Yes you can use a tool like Acronis True Image to clone the HD.

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

Well, thought I'd post a couple of updated HD Tune results. These results are post-optimized system results. The earlier one was stock system (not optimized) Not much of a difference, but still, better results... Once, again, this harddrive is a real Killer, with a big K! Look at that speed! With this transferrate, and a relatively OKish access-time, and take into account the dirt-cheap price, and the HUGE (for a laptop) capacity, I've concluded that SSDs are generally NOT worth it... Though that will probably change once the Intel fast SSDs hit the market with reasonable prices.'

 

I bought the exact HDD few days ago! hope it will arrive soon.

 

Im hoping to get either the 250 or 320 GB version of this. Anyone know where the best deal is at for this hard drive?

 

I bought the 320gig version on sale from ncix for $101.

 

I got the 250GB version from PCConnection for $87 (with free fall sensor though) and it performs almost identically to what you are posting here.

Nice to see another happy user!

 

How come my Seagate never got that high maximum speed???
Gotta check it again.

 

dont worry han, their peak is like 20mb/sec faster than my 7k320 peak
But I still win in seek 14.7 haha, thats the one platter advantage for you baby

K-TRON

 

****, and I thought $140 was cheap for mine....

 

The clicking noise seems to be the norm, a 320GB 7200.3 unit I have also clicked tirelessly but after a day or so, it wasn't so bad. Was a bit too loud for me, though.
Around these parts its priced at ~$111 inc tax.

 

Yeah I got a good deal, right after I bought it, the price went up to $133 again.

That's really odd, I haven't noticed any clicking sounds whatsoever, in fact it's much more quiet than the 5400rpm, 250gig hdd that came with this laptop. I couldn't be happier with this drive!

 

I cant hear my 7K320's even when my ear is like 6" away from them. They are super quiet. That may be why this generation of Hitachi lost to Seagate. I think Hitachi's firmware and drive is more keyed toward reliability and quiet rather than speed.
I dont mind, any of the latest generation drives are wicked fast, and the reliability is really all I care about.

I am almost 100% sure all of the 7200rpm drives are pretty quiet, since they use the same everything except for the actuator arm controller and the firmware.

K-TRON